Social selling, you probably heard about it. Nowadays, many brands incorporate social selling into their strategies. However, some people still confuse it with social media advertising or even social media marketing despite the specific differences.
First of all, social selling is about building relationships with potential clients that will allow marketers to attract quality leads and increase sales. In this regard, LinkedIn seems a great fit, especially if you look to sell goods to businesses.
Read on to know more about social selling and how to use LinkedIn for sales.
Why is Social Selling Important?
The importance of social selling lies in the creation of bonds with potential customers. When you connect with the customers, they begin to trust your brand. That way, you are building a long-term model that is likely to bring dividends after some time.
In other words, you focus on sustainable relations, creating a community around your brand that will add to the retention of the customers. That way, you do not promote products but share values. In the very end, it grants more online presence.
Why use LinkedIn as social media for social selling?
In this regard, any LinkedIn social selling strategy offers certain benefits. They are a community of professionals and experts as well as great functions for the engagement with them. People create accounts on LinkedIn to find solutions and connections. Thus, if a marketer shares the right contact, educates, and offers the answer to the problems, it may be easier for a brand to connect with its target audience.
How to Use Linkedin for Sales
Using LinkedIn for sales is concerned with the application of three significant concepts:
- It allows providing value to the professionals on Linkedin.
- Social listening. It is about seeing the issues of the audience and finding the solution.
- The particular concept contemplates connecting with people, discussing the issues, and increasing your brand’s presence.
Thus, a marketer should have significant knowledge of the industry where they operate, examine the audience’s wants or pain points, and communicate with it. At the same time, when designing a Linkedin social selling strategy, a person should think of how they would offer value, present themselves and engage with the audience.
There are specific tips on using LinkedIn for B2B sales:
Show your expertise in profile
Before engaging with you, people are likely to examine your profile. To earn trust, you should show them why you are an expert. The best way is to fill the summary, experience, skills, and endorsement sections. Besides, insert the appropriate photo and make sure to show your connection to the products or business you are promoting. Background photo is the best way to do so.
Create great content
As soon as you set up your profile, you can start creating content. Your account should be active. Thus, start your content creation by writing about general topics or your professional activity.
The insights matter, even if they would be seen only by not many people at first. Simultaneously, you can share someone’s posts or comment on their ideas, even thank them if they mention your product. In later stages, you can share case studies or solutions from the specific cases to provide value.
One of the ways to create a case study is to contact some experts in the field or do research. You can write people direct messages or use their emails. In this regard, marketers usually apply email finders. The particular one can find people’s emails by name and a corporate domain: https://getprospect.com/email-finder/email-finder-by-name.
After establishing the contact, you can poll or interview them to analyze the data and give your expert opinion. Great content means that you go beyond selling and aspire to offer value.
Expand Your Network
When using LinkedIn for B2B sales, networking is one of the pillars supporting the successful operation. Therefore, you have to send invitations to people, and the reason is that the more connections you have, the more doors you can open.
With an extensive network, you can see the profile of your connections to understand your prospects better. Moreover, it will be easier for you to meet new people on LinkedIn if they know someone from your network.
In this regard, you can target decision-makers and invite them to join your network. Lastly, growing your network can lead to greater visibility of your posts and engagement rates.
Utilize different tools
LinkedIn has specific instruments to improve the social selling operation. For instance, Sales Navigator would give insights on the prospects and offer an advanced search for connections. It facilitates targeting your audience and designating the messages with a personalized approach.
At the same time, some tools allow you to get emails from LinkedIn. You will need it if your prospects fail to answer your direct message. Sometimes, email marketing can help you establish an important connection or close a deal.
Start and participate in discussions
One of the best ways to engage with customers is via communities. You can create one and gather the prospects there. On the other hand, you can join the ones that operate and post your thoughts there. It does not only mean creating posts but commenting and sharing advice in the comment section. If your pieces are good, people can start following you.
Another tactic to start a discussion is by organizing an event, like a webinar or Q&A session. You can invite a guest or speaker so that people can ask them questions. That way, you would be able to hear about the problems, know more about solutions, and sometimes get your prospect’s emails. Yet, the latter option will only work if you make the event your lead magnet.
Do not push, communicate first
Lastly, the main rule of social selling: do not push prospects to buy goods from you. First, you should create bonds. You should start with an invitation and find common ground. It may be the publication you both shared, their post, or your comment. Besides, you can start with advice for the problem they encountered. Yet, do not sell until they are ready.
If they like your advice, they may ask for more and go to your profile or website. For sure, some prospects may ask you to present your product, and it may be a signal for you to act. Nonetheless, don’t be pushy and do not promote your product directly. Provide value, and they will approach you on their own.
